Rangers are excited about this pitcher

This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry’s Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ARLINGTON –-Mike Maddux remembers when he first saw Dane Dunning throw.

It was this past offseason, in January or February he remembered, as Dunning began his throwing program coming off a hip surgery that prematurely ended his 2022 season with just a few weeks to go.

“I saw what he did with the ball,” the Rangers pitching coach explained. “I saw the confidence he exuded when he threw the ball. I became a fan right away. When you command the baseball with the movement that he has, you can get anybody out.”

Dunning was pushed down the Rangers rotation depth chart this offseason after a trio of veteran signings in Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney But after a few short weeks as a reliever, in which he’s thrived to a sub-2.00 ERA as a long reliever, Dunning is set to return to the rotation with ace deGrom landing on the injured list with elbow inflammation.

The Rangers built rotational depth for moments like this. And with Jake Odorizzi and Glenn Otto already on the 60-day IL, Dunning was immediately the next man up. The right-hander has posted 1.77 ERA in 20 1/3 innings as the Rangers’ long reliever, but had just a 4.46 ERA in 29 games in 2022.

“He’s a very solid Major League pitcher, and he's off to a great start,” general manager Chris Young said. “He's done a great job, and we're fortunate to have him to be able to slide in during moments like this.”

Maddux, for what it’s worth, wasn’t surprised by Dunning’s development.

But what has made Dunning so much more effective this year, even if it’s been in a completely different role than he’s used to? Start with the health of that hip. If you ask Dunning, it’s been “night and day” recognizing the difference in his strength and drive and looseness down the mound with a healthy body.

“I put a lot of work in this offseason, just trying to get back to being healthy and back to being able to drive off my back leg,” Dunning said. “I still feel it's still a work in progress, but it's definitely coming along a lot better. I'm able to hold myself down the mound a lot better. I think that's really kind of where the comfortability comes in and I’m just a lot more consistent with my delivery.”

“It's been significantly different. It's a lot stronger, it's a lot healthier. I can just feel it down the mound. I can feel my hips firing now. I'm able to just, like I said, carry myself down the mound instead of just jumping off my back leg trying to create force. Now it can be a lot smoother and a lot more repeatable with my delivery.”

It’s sometimes hard for players to accept new roles, manager Bruce Bochy said. But Dunning has been all in on helping the team win, no matter what.

“I have to be careful here because I don’t want to sell him short,” Bochy said on whether he expected Dunning to be so good this year. “He was throwing the ball very well this spring and I think that if you look back at the hip, it was probably bothering him even more than he talked about last year. He's got that fixed and he's got a lot of confidence going in.”

Now the Rangers have to wait and see if that development and success will carry over with Dunning’s return to the rotation, no matter how short -- or long -- the stint may be.